Editorial
Throwing facts to the winds
Hasina and Khaleda Zia have disappointed us
Our sense of disbelief is being stretched a little too far. When Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina tells the nation that the responsibility for the on-going scandal around the Padma Bridge project is for the past BNP government to bear, we wonder if she really thinks Bangladesh's people will take her at her word. Again, when leader of the opposition Khaleda Zia tells us that a few rightwing politicians now in prison on charges of war crimes actually committed no such crimes during the Liberation War, we are left astounded at the way in which she tries to serve up new history to us. No words can be strong enough to condemn such an assessment of history from the two individuals who have held centre stage in national politics since the early 1980s. Both Hasina and Khaleda know that what they say are unvarnished untruths. Must they do it? Why must their rhetoric be of such a dismal kind as to leave us all raising questions about their political judgement?
When the prime minister blames the BNP over the sordid Padma Bridge story, does she really expect people to believe her? To our deep regret, we can only say that she has not only offended the country but also questioned the basic intelligence of the people. At a time when the World Bank has clearly mentioned names in its letters to the prime minister, the finance minister and the Anti-Corruption Commission, it makes little sense for Sheikh Hasina to now tell us that all the embarrassment we are going through over the bridge issue is really because of the BNP! Focus now on Begum Zia's loud defence of the alleged war criminals. Without considering even for a moment the possible ramifications of her remarks, she has dismissed the charges of war criminality against men whose record insofar as it relates to 1971 is public knowledge. By saying what she has, the BNP chairperson has also repudiated her husband, the late Ziaur Rahman, whose participation in the War of Liberation remains a seminal event in the history of this country. By opting for political expediency, by throwing history to the winds, Begum Zia has only shown up the bankruptcy national politics today suffers from.
We appeal to Sheikh Hasina and Begum Zia: please resist the temptation of undermining facts and undermining history. It is one of the saddest moments in a nation's life when its head of government denies the present, when its former prime minister turns her back on the past. Do our leaders really think they can say just about anything they like?
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